2016 has been an exciting year for JACR, lots of events, stickers(!) and lots more. But not only for JACR, but also for the american producer Flite, we looked back with him on the past year and we looked at the coming year.

JACR: Let’s start off with a small introduction, who are you and what do you do?

Flite: My name is Justin, and I am a 22 year old music producer from the United States; I’ve been producing music for about 6 years now and I am currently pursuing it professionally. I write mainly Drum & Bass music, but also delve into compositions with more classical instruments and am severely interested in Video Game music.

So you have been making music for quite a long time now, if I remember correctly Flite isn’t your first alias. What or who influenced you to start making music?

I’ve been writing music for somewhere around 11 years now, as I started writing music with Midi on a program called Anvil Studio, as well as on a Yamaha Motif ES8 my parents had bought for the family a long time ago. This got me interested in writing music in a more convenient way, but much of the reason I began writing music in the first place was related to my love for the works of Koji Kondo and Joe Hisaishi. Eventually when I stumbled upon the sounds of Pendulum, Netsky, Fred V & Grafix, Logistics, Noisia, Hospital Records and Liquicity as a whole, my love for the styles of Joe Hisaishi and Koji Kondo converged on Drum & Bass, as these producers were releasing hugely influential records around the time I started.

I suppose your music did sound a lot different when you just started, was your music any similar to your music nowadays and how did your sound evolve?

I think that stylistically I could have written something I would write today in the past, however my biggest limitation was my technical production skill. As my production skills evolved, this opened up new techniques to create more complex sounds, more intricate drum work, lusher sounds as a whole, and over all improve the quality of my music as I combined my new skills with refined writing! As for how my sound has evolved, recently I have become much more comfortable with creating dancefloor tracks, instead of just music that you might listen to on your own. I really want to expand my sound into something that I can hear playing at festivals and club nights, and still keeping every bit of Flite’s style to it.

“Good luck has certain prerequisites!”

If you had one tip for every starting producer, what would it be?

You are responsible for creating your own luck; when I say that, I don’t mean that luck isn’t real…however, good luck has certain prerequisites! If you are ever in the position where you are presented an opportunity, make sure that you have preceded this situation with lots of hard work and quality music. If you are caught by a potential opportunity, make sure that you have prepared for it in the best way possible! Spend the time on your mixes, spend the time creating compelling music, spend the time networking with other musicians to better yourself, spend the time getting to know those who might help your career succeed, and spend the time getting to know your fans! You never know what lies around the corner, but you must always be prepared to the best of your ability for it.

A few years back your songs were uploaded on the youtube channel of Liquicity, this was the first time I personally heard of you, and I guess the same counts for many others. How important has this been for your career?

Hugely important for me! Liquicity’s support for my music launched my career with an awesome community to push my music to, as well as a first group of fans that still follow my music to this day. Liquicity has featured 8 pieces of my music on their channel in the past, which led to me being featured and releasing music on UKF and MrSuicidesheep. Arguably, Liquicity’s support during one of its best years, 2012-2013, was instrumental in motivating me and connecting me to much of my current music network! At this moment I have 1.5 million hits across Liquicity, which is huge for me! I definitely would not have the audience I do if it were not for them.

It is around a year ago since you started streaming music production on Twitch, I can imagine the influence this had on your career. But for the people that have no clue what you do on Twitch, could you explain it in short?

I began broadcasting my production time on Twitch.Tv in late January of 2016, right after I had left school for the final time to pursue music professionally. Right now I broadcast two days of live music production, and one day for music feedback for my viewers! We have an amazing community full of very talented producers, and many people express that they come strictly to watch me write music and chill out. To me, it’s awesome to have the additional motivation for writing music, because it makes me insanely productive usually. In 2016 alone I wrote over 35 different pieces of music, where the year previous to that I had written only about 5 songs. I also have some incredibly kind viewers who send me donations on stream, and it has made an immense difference in my life; in my current state, my viewers and contributors actually keep me able to sustain my lifestyle of writing and producing music, and this has 100% been the sole reason I’ve written so much music this year. HUGE thank you to you guys who watch my streams, and any donors out there, you all are such an amazing community and I couldn’t be prouder to celebrate a year on Twitch!

So what does your workflow looks like? Do you already have something in mind when you start on a new project or is it much different than that?

Generally when I come into a new project, I have something in mind for the overall vibe of the music, however that can change at any moment! I have a template that I’ve created over the years that allows me to quickly get into the mixing attributes of the project and avoid needless time wasting setting the same things up over and over again, so I can maximize my creative energy actually writing and doing sound design. Often I will write something that I enjoy for a little bit, but I might lose my inspiration from what I was doing or stop feeling the project as a whole. I have learned to value any creative output that I make because one day I might see something different or better for the project, so sometimes I will come back to a project after several years of ignoring it. Otherwise, when I begin a project, I might have an idea for what I want, but usually the piece of music develops on its own. I’m just a facilitator, as I like to let the music write itself.

“I’m just a facilitator, as I like to let the music write itself.”

2016 has been a great year for you but with the release of ‘Awakening’ on Hospital Records, 2017 might even be crazier. What do you think 2017 will be like for you?

2016 was an incredible year for me, as I’ve always wanted to prove that I can do music production full time. I proved to myself and many of my relatives that it was possible, and to begin 2017, I’ve just signed Awakening and released it on Hospital Records, one of the labels I’ve always dreamed of releasing music on. So…this year will be something legendary for me, I feel as motivated as I possibly can be, and ultimately I intend to release plenty of music (possibly an EP), DJ more in the United States and hopefully Europe, and possibly work on a few secret side projects of mine. Perhaps a great change of pace would be to write a film or video game score. We’ll see! But I can tell you will strict confidence that I am going full force from here on out, as this is my life’s passion. Make sure you’re always doing what you love.